Novice, Coleman school boards to ask state to close district to March 1

The Novice Independent School District’s board of trustees voted Monday night to request a waiver from the state to move up the effective date of the district’s consolidation with Coleman ISD.

Novice ISD, which closed in June 2012, is asking Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams to change the effective date of the consolidation to March 1 from the original date of July 1.

Coleman Superintendent Royce Young said its board will vote on the same request for a waiver during a special-called meeting set for 7:45 a.m. Friday at the district’s administrative office.

“It doesn’t really change anything at all,” Young said of speeding up the consolidation process. “There’s not really any reason to wait until July 1st since the students aren’t involved in it anymore. We can start moving things over here and it won’t be in the heat of the summer. It’s a good thing and hopefully TEA will approve it and we can get started.”

Texas Education Agency Spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said she wouldn’t judge the request before it arrives from the districts.

“We would certainly give it every consideration,” Ratcliffe said.

“Normally, consolidations happens in the summer when school is out. But typically, both districts are still educating students at the time of the consolidation. In the Novice-Coleman situation, the students have already moved.”

Novice Superintendent Dale Freeman said the district’s board also voted Monday to repay the TEA the $574,704 it owes the state for the overpayment Novice received during the 2011-2012 school year for anticipated enrollment that never materialized. Freeman said the district had $750,000 in the bank as of Tuesday. In addition to the TEA, the district still has financial obligations, including payments to Coleman ISD and Panther Creek ISD for providing instructing services to Novice ISD students.

“The board has always wanted to pay TEA whatever we can,” Freeman said. “Feb. 1 is the last day to pay tax payments, we had been waiting for tax dollars to come in and as soon as we knew that we had enough funds to pay TEA, they were happy to wrap it up.”

In November, Jim Ned CISD’s board voted 4-2 against a controversial detachment/annexation petition that would’ve taken more than 51 percent of Novice ISD’s land to Jim Ned. Both Jim Ned and Novice’s boards needed to approve the petition for it to go through.